ANGELA MERKEL should not be blamed for the rash of violence in Germany, despite a leading member of her own party admitting its authorities were unable "to register and control" all the migrants who had entered the country.
On Monday Germany was reeling from a fourth atrocity in a week after a failed asylum-seeker blew himself up at a music festival.
The Ansbach bombing has rattled the country and fuelled further criticism of Chancellor Merkel's open-door immigration policy.
The state of Bavaria's interior minister said the suspect, who was known to police, had lived in Germany for two years but was denied asylum in the country a year ago.
German MP Stephan Mayer, home affairs spokesperson for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, admitted there were “hints” that Islamic State militants had infiltrated Germany in the “tremendous flood of refugees” last year but argued it was “completely wrong” to blame her immigration policy for the recent violent incidents.
GETTY
Mr Mayer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the 1.1 million migrants and refugees Germany let in last year represent a “big challenge” for law enforcement.
Worryingly he announced: “We were not able to register and control all the migrants that crossed the German border.
“We have to regain sovereignty and we have to regain the rule of rights. There’s a lot of space for improvement.”
He added there were indications that the Ansbach suicide bomber was an Islamist and his application for asylum had been turned down but it had not been possible to deport him to Syria due to the country's civil war.
GETTY
Mr Mayer also told of “rising nervousness” in Germany following the attacks, adding there was a “lot of space for improvement” over how migration was being handled.
The German Chancellor has been heavily scrutinised for being slow to react to recent attacks.
She has been blamed for fuelling the European migrant crisis by promising to welcome those who make it Germany, mostly illegally, from outside the EU.
Mike Hookem, UKIP’s defence spokesman, has warned over the past two years of the “huge security risks” posed by the German Chancellor’s open door migrant policy.
Following the brutal slaughter of a pregnant woman in Reutlingen, he said Ms Merkel “has blood on her hands”.
